Obituary Notices. 
li 
“ aber auch in den Literaturen von Frankreich, Italien, Deutsch- 
land nnd anderen Landern ist der machtig treibende Einfluss der 
Yule’schen Methode, welche wissenschaftliche Grundlichkeit mit 
anmutender Form verbindet, bemerkbar.” And after some touch- 
ing words on the personal character of the man, he emphatically 
accords him “den nnbestrittenen Platz als des ersten Yertreters 
und Bahnbrechers unserer Zeit auf dem Gebiet der historischen 
Geographie.” * 
I may cite, further, a letter from Mr Delmar Morgan, who, not 
only as a scholarly writer and an expert in Asiatic geography, but 
also from his position on the Hakluyt and Asiatic Societies, is 
specially conversant with Colonel Yule’s work. He dwells on “ his 
rare skill in making intelligible to his readers the most perplexing 
and confused accounts of geographical explorations, the thorough 
way in which he mastered his authorities, and knew from a con- 
scientious study of their works how much reliance was to be 
placed on them. Take his Marco Polo and open it at any page, 
and you will find as much learning in a single note as some 
writers are content to put into a chapter, or even a volume 
Lastly, in all he wrote and all he did he was always Al. 
Nothing second-rate or mean emanated from him.” The veteran 
geographer, Mr H. W. Bates, F.K.S., also writes to me expressing 
himself emphatically in the same sense, both from the literary and 
from the moral point of view ; and those who know him will not 
question the competency of his judgment in either particular. 
The labour of compiling such a work as Marco Polo was 
enhanced by a compulsory residence at Palermo, where he had 
taken up his abode in 1864 on account of his wife’s health. The 
comparative nearness to the great Italian libraries was, however, an 
assistance; and in truth his references were drawn from every 
corner of the world, and he had occasionally to wait for months for 
the verification of a single statement by a correspondent, in the 
heart, maybe, of China or Tartary. But such labour was repaid by 
a correspondence often of great interest, and by the acquaintance, 
not seldom ripening into fast friendship, of many distinguished 
men of various countries, and not the least of Italy, where such an 
* Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin, Bd. xvii. 
No. 2, 
